


We Walk The Plank

by littlerhymes



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Book/Movie Fusion, Gen, Lost Boys, Peter Pan - Freeform, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-03
Updated: 2007-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Peter Pan AU. Pete, Frank, Brendon, and Patrick feature in a tale of youthful abandon and piratical dastardry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Walk The Plank

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to SQ (proteinscollide) for beta-reading!

The Lost Boys' raid went splendidly.  
   
The notorious Hook was nowhere to be seen ('twas rumoured amongst the Lost Boys he was too cowardly to face Pan himself) but his men were out in full force - his fearsomely tattooed first mate Hurley, the legendarily cruel Black Bryar, Toro-toro the dread duellist, Gabriel 'the Cobra' Saporta and many other pirates of equally gruesome repute. However, they were no match for laughing Pan and the raid had quickly become a rout.  
   
Of the boys, only Mikey had been wounded.  
   
He'd taken a grievous stab to his side from that cutlass-wielding peg-legged fiend of the high seas, P. Stump, curse his salty eyes, and had to be carted home in a makeshift stretcher, moaning all the while, until even those piteous sounds gave way to gasps.  
   
"It's his liver!" cried Brendon, quite certain. "Or - is it his pancreas?" His face wrinkled up beneath its camouflage of dirt, as he named the organs in an undertone.  
   
And the blood flowed on. Frank pressed his hands over the cut and pretended his hardest that the wound was healed and gone. The younger ones - Spencer and Brendon and Ryan - had already skylarked away shouting victory chants, but Joe understood immediately and tried his hardest too. They knelt, their eyes screwed up and tongues sticking out the corner of their mouths in concentration.  
   
Still the blood pulsed out through Frank's fingers like some vital, thickened yolk. "Never mind me," Mikey gasped in a grey little voice. "I'm done for, a cracked egg, a felled bird."  
   
"Hold on, Mikey," Joe said softly, but Frank let out a cry and leapt to his feet. "Where's Pan?" he said, with a snarl befitting the wolf-pelts slung around his shoulders, a tremble in his voice. "Where's PAN?"   
   
It was then they heard a rustling in the trees overhead, the sort of sounds that might be made by bats stirring at sunset or a monkey peeling a ripe banana or perhaps even a boy's nimble green-clad feet on slender branches. For it was Peter, of course, shinning down a vine.  
   
"Stand aside, boys," he said grandly, and swept them both away with a languid wave. Frank was slower to move, scrubbing at his tears with a filthy hand. Pete smiled down at Mikey, arrogant and arms folded. "You are in the presence of Myself, Mikey," he said. "So why aren't you standing?"  
   
"I can't, Peter," Mikey said meekly, pale and growing paler still. "I've been stabbed in my liver. Or pancreas."  
   
"Stabbed? Nonsense," Pete said scornfully. "You've been _scratched_. You've barely been touched, why, you're not even bleeding!"  
   
And no sooner had he said it than all of this was true, and a mere moment after that Mikey was standing, though he wavered on his feet like a newborn calf. And of course that was when Ryan and Brendon and Spencer came running back, cheering at wonderful Peter's return.  
   
"You see?" Pete smiled, fists on hips. "It was a grand victory today, wasn't it boys? We gave 'em a thrashing and a half they shan't forget too soon!" The boys chorused their _aye_ 's and _yes Peter_ 's with unbridled enthusiasm.  
   
If any noticed that Frank remained silent they kept it to themselves - and indeed even for Frank it was already becoming difficult to remember. Had he and Joe really run back to camp with the stretcher, lungs burning and hearts thudding in terrible fear for Mikey's life? Or had they all marched back with the others, voices raised in triumphant shouts and songs, their spears punching at the sky?  
   
Pete was untainted by such equivocation. He was, then and now, pure as certainty, strong as truth. "Time to feast, boys!"  
   
And feast they did, until the moon was high in the sky. After they were all happily full on roast pork and apple pie and coconut milk (even Tinkerbell had drunk three thimbles' worth), the Lost Boys rolled themselves up in their blankets. Some nights Pete would pull Mikey aside, or Ryan, or whoever had especially caught his eye, and they would disappear into the forest while the rest of them politely pretended to sleep. However, a long day of fighting and feasting had quite exhausted even Peter, and he was alone in his bedroll that night.   
   
Most of the boys were snoring within moments - especially Brendon, whose snores were so very loud he had once been ordered by Peter to sleep outside - and Mikey too was on the verge of dropping off, his head pillowed on Frank's skinny shoulder, when Frank whispered his name. "Mikey? Mikey," Frank said. "Now, I can't be completely sure, but I think I may've seen Gerard today. With the _pirates_."  
   
"What?" Mikey yawned, cuddling up closer to Frank's side. "Who's Gerard?"  
   
Frank sighed, very very quietly. "Nothing. Goodnight."  
   
*  
   
 _"Cap'n?" P. Stump says, knocking softly. "Cap'n?" He waits but there is no reply.  
   
Stump turns to go, and gets a nasty fright. It's the new man, somehow snuck up without the wooden deck yielding so much as a creak. Stump jumps about a foot in the air and snatches at his cap in distress before recovering himself and frowning sternly, as befits the address of a boatswain to an inferior.  
   
"What do you want?" he says rudely.  
   
"What's wrong with the captain?" the new man asks without preamble, his grin showing the gleam of gold-capped incisors. "Why's he always in his cabin?"  
   
Stump frowns harder and stamps the pegleg that gave him his name. "'Tis just his way and not for the likes of you to question. Get back to work, Way."  
   
"Aye, aye." Switchblade Way grins again and tugs mockingly at his straggling black forelock before ambling away on silent feet.  
   
So the Jolly Roger sailed on._  
   
*  
   
Sometimes Peter disappeared for a few days at a time - but he always returned with a gift.  
   
Brendon loved the new boy straight away. His name was Jon and he had soft, laughing eyes and hair that rumpled easily. Just like the rest of them, he arrived on a blue-sky-day, following Peter's lead through the stars and past the clouds and into the sweet-smelling air of Neverland.   
   
"Here's your new brother, boys, and a fine plucky one too," Pete announced, very pleased with himself. "Now who'll show him the ropes?"  
   
Brendon took one look at the new boy, blinking before all the attention and still dressed in blue flannel pyjamas, and jumped to his feet. "I will! Me, me!"   
   
Jon didn't resist when Brendon grabbed him by the hand, eager to show him every nook and cranny of the lair. "This is Tinkerbell's room but we aren't allowed to look inside, except for Peter. Over here we keep our weapons, you may try them later if you like though not now.  _There_  is where Ryan and I came to blows over a hat with a peacock feather which was rightfully mine, and I knocked him down and he cried." Luckily for Brendon, Ryan was not present to hear this awful slander.   
   
Quickly Brendon moved on, saying, "This is the larder which most of us find quite interesting. So you see at the moment we have only have rather a lot of honey, and two cheeses, and some sort of bean. I usually cook, or Joe does, and sometimes Frank. Frank has been here the longest, I _think_. Or perhaps it is Mikey."  
   
"And how long have you been here?" Jon said, his smile making Brendon wish that he could steal Jon's dimple and press it in a book.  
   
"Oh, always!" Brendon replied carelessly, and believed it to be true.  
   
In fact it was not so long ago that he himself had been the new boy. On his own first night around the campfire, no one had leapt up to be _his_ guide. Instead there was an agonising pause while two boys looked at one another, reaching some silent agreement before they stood to reluctantly claim him.  
   
However, once granted, Ryan and Spencer's acceptance was sweet as butterscotch and constant as sunshine. Though other memories had fast faded Brendon still remembered the first night they pulled him under the covers with them, how he fell asleep sharing in their warmth, and the morning after woke to Spencer fondly kicking him in the shins.  
   
Next Brendon took Jon to the cliff with the waterfall. This was one of the best places to look out over Neverland: down below one could see the smoke of the natives' camp rising up from out of the forest to the east; while to the west there lay the glittering lagoon and the mermaids sunning themselves on the shore, kelp-ish hair spread on the sand. Further away still was the Jolly Roger, hulking low and black in the emerald sea.  
   
Standing on the cliff's edge, they took turns at cupping their hands about their mouths and shouting for the fun of hearing the cotton-clumped clouds tossing the sounds back to them as echoes.  
   
"Surfing!" Jon shouted.  
   
"Lollipops!" Brendon shouted.  
   
"Bows and arrows!" Jon shouted.  
   
"Never growing up!" Brendon bawled loudest of all, and they both waited in rapt stillness until the sky said back to them in agreement, _never, never_.  
   
*  
   
 _Still no sign of the captain.  
   
But 'tis after midnight, the decks are clear of even the ever-vigilant Stump, and the door to the captain's cabin stands ajar - an invitation Switchblade Way can no more resist than a deck of cards or a slice of cherry pie. He creeps up on thief-quiet feet and holds his breath for good measure as he angles for a look inside the door.  
   
Way had thought only to catch a glimpse and then steal away again. But the sight of the villain's face disturbs him so that he cannot stifle a little gasp.  
   
Hook looks up from his maps and papers, face fixed in a menacing aspect. His single hand is covered with inkstains, and his fine red coat makes him seem wan and sallow. "Who goes there?" he snarls, gouging at the table with his cruelly gleaming hook.  
   
Way shuffles into the light. His voice sticks in his throat.  
   
Yet Hook's sneer fades before Way says a single word. "Who are you?" he says, in a voice of dark wonderment that matches the uneasy roil in Way's stomach. "Do I know your face?"  
   
"Aye, Captain." Gerard finds the words at last and steps inside the cabin, closing the door behind him._  
    
*  
   
The next day Pete took the boys on a hunt. It was easy enough for Peter to pretend the larder full, but he preferred the proper sport of a kill. They filed out solemnly, faces daubed (more daubed) with mud and spears held low at their sides - except for Jon, still in his now rather grubby blue flannels, and unarmed but for a dagger as long as his hand.  
   
Pete found the bear, a hoary and battle-scarred child-eater housed in a stony cave. "Wake up, old snaggle-tooth!" he cried. "Come out and fight the splendidness of Me!" He stood hands on hips, dark eyes and white teeth flashing in his golden face. The bear roared and grizzled at its young tormentor and lumbered forward, swiping at a laughing and careless Peter.  
   
Oh! Brendon thought longingly with his spear shaking in his hand, what he would give to fight like Pan, landing blows like thunder claps!  
   
It was hardly a match. "Quickly now," Pete said, barely panting as he held the bear's arms pinned down to its sides. "Jon, take your dagger and finish the blighter off." He let the bear go and sprang back laughing merrily as it charged ahead in blind rage.  
   
Jon hesitated only a moment. Then he set his jaw and darted forward, ducking massive paws and slavering jaws, his little blade jabbing at the bear's black hide. Brendon trembled as he watched, heart in his mouth, even as the rest of the boys stamped the butts of their spears against the ground in fierce and steady rhythm.  
   
Ah, there! Jon's knife-hand rose and fell, rose and fell, and suddenly it was over. The bear shuddered and staggered, and then the very earth shook beneath its mighty fall. Brendon let out a deep sigh of relief and then immediately whooped, and before another moment had passed they were all whooping, crowing, roaring and howling in triumph.  
   
"Never grow up!" Pete crowed as they traipsed back to base, "never grow up!" He was the fiercest and proudest of them all, at their head with beaming boy Jon only a step or two behind. "The bear pelt will be yours," Pete promised grandly, "and you shall have your pick of the weapons."  
   
It was left to the rest of the boys to divide up the bear between them. It was at first unpleasant to be carrying such heavy, squishy lumps but Pete believed very firmly that the natural outcome of hunting was dinner, so by the time they were back to camp the bear's carcass had quietly turned itself into roast beef, black pudding, sausages, and shepherd's pie.  
   
After dinner Jon was permitted to choose a splendid spear from the armory. It was slightly worn, but of a beautiful goldish wood and fitted with a flint head sharp enough to slice carrot-cake. (Nobody was quite sure if the carrot-cake was also made out of bear, but it smelled and looked so enticing that they sensibly did not question the matter any further and merely set to dessert with gusto.)  
   
"But what's this?" Jon said, looking more closely at the shaft. "I say, there's a word carved into the wood here! G, E, R, A..."  
   
Brendon suddenly thought he was going to be quite ill, though he had not the faintest idea why.  
   
Then Pete reached over and closed his hand over the spear quite firmly. "I don't see any letters. There's nothing there but a few scratches," he said confidently, and when he let go they could all see this was absolutely true, and Brendon immediately felt much better.  
   
"Of course you're right," Jon said, blushing at his own silliness. "There's nothing there." Yet he rubbed his hands over the spear as though to make completely sure.  
   
*  
   
 _A pirate's life!  
   
'Tis rum, salt, swordfights, and foreign skies. 'Tis dancing till dawn and the crack of the lash. Dried beef and hard biscuit and weevil'd bread, hard-won gold thrown away in a long long night that begins in the whorehouse and ends in the stinking gutter.  
   
'Tis seamanship and skill and quick wits on high riggings. 'Tis long hours of poring over yellowed maps and navigating treacherous shores. Losing your leg to cannonfire, learning to walk again with a limb of oak, lip bitten through from the pain.  
   
'Tis holding your captain in a darkened cabin when he wakes from some fevered opium dream. "Stump," he says hoarsely, "Stump, I dreamt I was flying." He clings to you as though you were an anchor and he some strange vessel breaking loose from its moorings, and all you can do is be still, still, as stone and certainty.  
   
A pirate's life._  
   
*  
   
The raid came very late at night, when all the boys were sleepy from their dinners and nodding around the campfire yet not quite ready for bed. Brendon, resting his head on Jon's shoulder, had just yawned mightily and thus set off a domino-fall of yawns, when a blur of silver wings came screeching into the clearing.  
   
 _Wake, ready, fight, flee!_ Tink screamed, here pulling at Mikey's spectacles, now darting to bite at Joe's pink ear. _They are coming, Hook is coming HERE!_  
   
The Lost Boys rubbed the weariness from their eyes and sprang to their feet at once. Some lucky few had their spears and bows at the ready. The rest made do with rocks and frying pans and tennis racquets, whichever was closest to hand.   
   
"Peter," Frank began to say, which was the very moment they all realised at once that Peter was nowhere to be seen. Had he not sat there by the campfire only moments ago, carelessly toasting marshmallows on a stick held between his toes? Now there were only the 'mallows, burnt black through.  
   
"Where's Peter?" Brendon said, clinging to a bewildered Jon. None had the heart to say _hush_ for the younger ones were scared, and the older ones did not know what to do. Never before had Captain Hook himself dared lead an attack on their territory; nor had Peter ever abandoned them on the eve of a battle.  
   
"What do we do?" Mikey whispered, and slipped his hand into Frank's. Joe stepped closer too, his curly hair waving wildly. They had been Lost Boys for longer than anyone else, and the younger ones were looking at them expectantly.  
   
"How many, Tink?" Frank said, quietly so that only he and Mikey and Joe could hear. She opened and closed her palms, each tiny finger the point of a star - once, twice, three times.  
   
"Three to one? Pah! We've faced worse odds and won," Joe said bravely, though he spoke no louder than Frank did.  
   
This was true, and Frank could remember all of the Lost Boys' famous victories. Yet he seemed also to remember the horrible sensation of blood welling up slick and wet and warm from a terrible gash in Mikey's side - which surely had never happened? For he knew full well the contours of Mikey's thin body, pale and kissable but utterly unscarred. Still the phantom memory persisted, lingering like the sour taste of licorice.  
   
Now, it is true that Peter Pan would have stayed to fight. Peter would have laughed merrily if he were outnumbered thirty or even three hundred men to one boy, for the boy would have been a wonderful one indeed. But Frank was not Peter. He could not turn back the hand of time, or pretend raw flesh into fine dinners and, although he was very brave indeed, worrying about Mikey had made him forget how it felt to be fearless.  
   
So Frank, imagining the very worst, turned to the others to tell them: "Run."  
   
It took only moments for the boys to scatter. Their ragged furs and dirty limbs were the perfect disguise and they quickly disappeared from sight. Mikey was the last to go and most reluctant to leave. "And you will come and find me? You'll meet me by the coconut tree over the stream near the parrots' rock?" he asked anxiously, naming a place where they'd once spent an afternoon carving out their names. "You won't forget, will you?"  
   
"Yes, yes, yes," Frank said all in a rush, and sealed it with a kiss. "Now run," he said sternly, and Mikey ran.  
   
Then only Frank and Tinkerbell remained. Quickly Frank chose a tree, far away to be safe but close enough to watch the camp, and clambered upwards while Tinkerbell rode inside his collar and gave him directions.  
   
He had not long to wait - the pirates were soon swarming all about the camp, and for once Hook himself was leading his band of bloodthirsty ruffians. Had Frank ever seen Hook before? He could not be sure. (Had he ever seen Hook confronting Pan? He was certain he had not.) Even now he barely saw the dread villain, for the darkness and trees hid so much that Hook seemed made of nothing more substantial than shadows, curls, gleams, and a velvety, sneering voice.  
   
The sight of the deserted camp sent Hook into a fury. "Find Pan!" he snarled, and kicked dirt at the campfire with a glossy black boot. Sparks flew and left firefly trails in the air. "Take the lair, rip it apart! The sooner we find those curs't boys, the sooner they shall walk the plank!"  
   
The pirates all at once cheered, for nothing entertains pirates more than walking the plank, unless it is rum (nasty medicine-tasting stuff but the perfect food for pirates). Hook's crew had brought axes with them as well as swords and muskets, and at his order they set to felling the trees that hid the entrance to the boys' lair.   
   
Frank and Tink watched helplessly as their home was destroyed. Frank was at first quite indignant and angry and thumped his fist on his own safe tree several times, but it soon grew very dull and after a time they both fell asleep. Although they kept their ears cocked and their bodies tensed to rouse at any moment for the sound of Peter's return, they slept through to morning without disturbance, except that their dreams were all of firewood and matchsticks and the smell of pencil shavings.  
   
*  
   
 _Back on board Hook fumes and scowls and paces out his frustration at being thwarted, yet again. "Blast those half-wits, those animals, those - children!" he spits, and rakes at his desk with his hook, sending stacks of papers flying.  
   
Stump kneels awkwardly to gather them up, great armfuls of ink-blotted sheets. A few words leap out at him - rings, hearts, stars - and his mouth tightens as he piles the papers back onto the desk all higgledy-piggledy. 'Tis only the usual gibberish.  
   
Hook collapses on the bed, one arm drawn dramatically over his eyes. "I can't take it anymore," he moans softly. "I can't stand it."  
   
But just as suddenly as he lay down he is on his feet again, now rushing to the porthole with a manic, frantic look in his eye.  
   
"What is it, Cap'n?" Stump says, forcing his voice to patience.  
   
"Can you not hear it?" Hook whispers. "Tick, tick, tock... 'tis the infernal crocodile, I swear! Ah, Stump," he says sadly, and allows himself to be guided back to bed. Stump pulls the blankets up to their chins as Hook mumbles on. "Oh, I shall hear it till the day I die. Tick, tock, tick..."_  
   
*  
   
The next morning Frank and Tink picked through the remains of the lair. The furniture and beddings had been burnt to ashes, the larder and the armory alike smashed and stripped bare. Tinkerbell wailed most terribly over the destruction of her boudoir, and Frank too came close to tears when he found the splintered frame of his favourite bow.  
   
Neither of them heard the approach of Pan - but then one never does, unless he intends it. "'Twas Hook, then," Pete said, dropping light-footedly through one of the many gaping holes where trees had once risen, with their woven roots forming the roof of the lair. He stood with hands on hips, surveying the destruction. He did not seem upset at all.  
   
Frank swelled up immediately with fury and indignation. "Where were you?" he cried, stamping his foot on the earth floor. Frank! Who had never crossed Peter since the day he had flown into Neverland. "You should have been here! You - you were _wrong_ to leave us, Peter!"  
   
Even Tinkerbell gasped at this rank impertinence. She clapped her hands tight over her mouth, eyes stretched wide open.  
   
"Do you truly dare challenge Me?" Pete looked at him with proud eyes that nonetheless held a hint of surprise. "Do you forget who you speak to, boy? Do you dare?"

At these words Frank flushed and bowed his head. But his voice was no less heated. "We have lost everything. The pirates have won. Don't you see, we needed you, Peter! Against Hook, we had-"  
   
"Be quiet," Pete ordered sharply. "Last night was nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing!"   
   
Peter's eyes flashed lightning bolts and Frank stepped back despite himself. Tinkerbell hid herself in his knotted hair, whimpering. Peter continued, command ringing in his voice: "The roof is whole, the larder is full. The fire burns. The lair is safe. The boys have gone swimming and will be home by sunset. _All is well in Neverland_."  
   
And word by word, the world righted itself. Milk unspilt and skies cleared, trees grew from seed to sapling to giant in the blink of an eye. Birds sang overhead. The past faded into the forever and now. Frank looked at the bow in his hand. It was flawlessly carved, and the string rang out a clear true note when he plucked it. "They'll be back by sunset?" he asked dully.  
   
"Yes," Peter said.  
   
"And they will have forgotten, like they've forgotten everything else?" Frank said, setting the bow down carefully against the cave wall.  
   
"... yes," Peter said at last, and let out a deep, deep breath. The leaves in the trees stirred in the breeze. "They will come back. They always come back. They will remember a victory."  
   
"And what about me?" Frank asked. He stood with his arms at his sides and waited, his hands clenching and unclenching.  
   
Peter's voice was fiercer and colder than Frank had ever heard it before. "You're growing up, Frank. You cannot stay." The trees rattled their branches together like bones.  
   
"No!" Frank cried, but as soon as Peter had said it he realised it was true. He was already taller than he had been three days ago and he knew deep in his heart that had he tried to fly at that very moment, he could not have managed even twenty feet. Tink began to weep, her tears wetting his shoulder.  
   
"They'll forget you soon, just like they forgot Gerard," Pete said coolly, already beginning to turn away. "Even Mikey," he added almost as an afterthought, and Frank had to bite down hard upon his fist to stop himself from wailing louder than Tink.  
   
Where was Mikey now? he thought despairingly. Not waiting by the coconut tree. Frank had made the promise, but Mikey had forgotten. Scrubbing his knuckles across his grimy cheeks, Frank stumbled past Pete and towards the promise of sunlight.  
   
"You know where you must go," Pete called, dark eyes mercilessly watching Frank struggle out of the lair, almost too large now to fit through the entrance. "Leave," echoed Pete's voice from the dark mouth of the cave as Frank struggled to his feet, "and never come back!"  
   
Peter's words followed Frank as he ran. And ran, and ran, and ran. He shed furs and dreadlocks and layers of dirt. His strides grew longer, his arms bloomed tattoos, silver dripped from his earlobe and turned into a ring.  
   
He was already halfway to sea when he stopped for a breather, panting. A wisp of moonlight lit down on his shoulder. He turned his head, too exhausted to be surprised.  _I come with you_ , Tinkerbell whispered, _I lead you to the sea_. He followed her fairy-light to the ocean. The ferns and trees of the forest that had been his home seemed now to shy back from his passing, so the path lay clear and true to the shore where a little wooden dinghy lay waiting in the shallows.   
   
Frank pushed it out into the deep and climbed in. Tinkerbell settled herself in the stern of the boat, her glow much dimmer now beneath the brightness of the sun. He rowed with long easy strokes, his callused hands as familiar with the oars as they were with tying an anchor bend, a short splice, a bowline.  
   
With each moment the Lost Boys seemed more like a dream, and the fairy looked more like a girl. By the time he reached the ship Tink was the size of a full-grown woman and her wings were almost invisible. "There, me hearty," she said, pulling back long hanks of dark hair into a witch's knot. She grinned at him. Her pointed teeth were the only sign of what she once had been.  
    
They came up against the barnacled side of the Jolly Roger with a bump. "Ahoy!" Frank cried to the faces peering down from the ship's railing. "Ahoy, let us up!"  
   
*  
   
 _"And who be you two?" P. Stump says gruffly to the new arrivals, looking at their faces in turn. He will not admit it, but he has already decided they'll do. Right salty sea dogs, the both of them.  
   
"I'm Victoria," the woman says, twirling a dagger in her hand. Her smile is broad and wicked. "But you can call me Vicky-T."  
   
Stump blinks - it seems for a moment as though something flutters in the air behind her - but it's only the sun sparkling off the water, a trick of the light. "Aye," he growls. "And you?" he says, turning to the other.  
   
"Francis," says the short wiry one, pulling off his bandanna absently to reveal lank black hair. But his eyes are already drifting past Stump and over to Switchblade Way, who grins back at him with a rare gleam in his eye.  
   
"Today you'll scrub the decks and peel potatoes," Stump says, watching the pair suspiciously, "but those that prove themselves'll rise fast in Hook's crew. Way," he barks sharply and watches Way jump to belated attention. "Show 'em to their quarters."  
   
He raises his voice, addressing the remainder of the gawking crew. "And back to work, the rest of you lazy lubs!" They shuffle away amiably enough, knowing his bark is worse than his bite.  
   
"But where is the captain?" he hears Francis asking quietly as Way leads them below deck.  
   
Ah, the captain. Stump pulls out his telescope to scan the horizon, seeking and finding the shape of a boy clad in green against the blue, blue sky. They'll not see Hook today._  
   
*

 

> Of course Peter should have kept quiet, but of course he did not.  He immediately answered in Hook's voice:
> 
> "Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you."
> 
> ... "Who are you, stranger?  Speak!" Hook demanded.
> 
> "I am James Hook," replied the voice, "captain of the JOLLY ROGER."
> 
> "You are not; you are not," Hook cried hoarsely.
> 
> "Brimstone and gall," the voice retorted, "say that again, and I'll cast anchor in you."
> 
> Hook tried a more ingratiating manner.  "If you are Hook," he said almost humbly, "come tell me, who am I?"
> 
> \- [Peter Pan](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16), J.M. Barrie

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _In the comments to the original post, packmentality said: 'Makes me wonder about Patrick's history; how he came to the Lost Boys, and when he was kicked out.' I replied:_
> 
> Pete liked to say Patrick was hatched from an acorn and raised by squirrels. He only did this to make Patrick scowl of course, though Patrick remembered so little of the actual circumstances that this story soon took on the ring of truth.
> 
> It is also true that Patrick was three and a half times more often found climbing trees than any other Lost Boy, and had fallen from at least twice as many as the next (being Andy, who was exceedingly dextrous).
> 
> Pete liked Patrick's scowl best after his smile. Before, the smile had been visible from the distance of sixty paces and had twinkled upwards from Patrick's bedroom window like the beacon of a lighthouse. Peter is infinitely curious and so could not resist pushing aside the curtain and tip-toeing inside.
> 
> "Who are you?" Patrick said upon seeing the strange and wonderful boy, and immediately gave the scowl which would become famous.
> 
> He had a marvelous way of switching between the two: scowl then smile, smile then scowl, and sometimes (very trickily) smile then smile. He would usually practise in between waking up and eating breakfast, so it was not uncommon to find him pulling the most fearsome faces before sensible people have even found their slippers.
> 
> But the first smile-and-scowl Patrick ever gave Pete was such a dazzler that he straight away decided he would have this boy, this scowler, this smiler, this singer of sea shanties. And you know what happens when Peter makes up his mind.
> 
> However, unlike some other boys, who tumble out of bed as easily as ripe plums, Patrick took some persuading and it was at least two days and eight kisses before he consented to take Peter's hand and embark on the flight into Neverland.
> 
> Patrick left behind an acoustic guitar, a folder full of sheet music, and a dear little hat. He soon forgot about the first two, but he was never ever seen again without a hat; Peter took care he should always have the finest in Neverland.


End file.
